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

by Lynn Shepherd

  “Dear me!” said Mr. Skimpole. “Vholes!”

  We asked if that were a friend of Richard’s?

  “Friend and legal adviser,” said Mr. Skimpole. “Now, my dear Miss Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and respectability, all united—if you want an exemplary man—Vholes is the man.”

  We had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman of that name.

  “When he emerged from legal infancy,” returned Mr. Skimpole, “he parted from our conventional friend Kenge, and took up, I believe, with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to Vholes.”

  “Had you known him long?” asked Ada.

  “Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had done something or other, in a very agreeable, civil manner—taken proceedings, I think, is the expression—which ended in the proceeding of his taking me. Somebody was so good as to step in and pay the money—something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody fourpence—and after that, I brought them together. Vholes asked me for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it,” he looks inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the discovery, “Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something, and called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think it must have been a five-pound note!”

  His further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard’s coming back to us in an excited state, and hastily representing Mr. Vholes—a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so remarkable in him as a lifeless manner, and a slow fixed way he had of looking at Richard.

  “I hope I don’t disturb you, ladies,” said Mr. Vholes; and now I observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of speaking. “I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know when his cause was in the Chancellor’s paper, and being informed by one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather unexpectedly, in the paper for tomorrow, I put myself into the coach early this morning and came down to confer with him.”

  “Yes,” said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me, “we don’t do these things in the old slow way, now. We spin along, now! Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in, and catch the mail tonight, and go up by it!”

  “Anything you please, sir,” returned Mr. Vholes. “I am quite at your service.”

  “Let me see,” said Richard, looking at his watch. “If I run down to the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or a chaise, or whatever’s to be got, we shall have an hour then before starting. I’ll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?”

  He was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the dusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house.

  “Is Mr. Carstone’s presence necessary tomorrow, sir?” said I. “Can it do any good?”

  “No, miss,” Mr. Vholes replied. “I am not aware that it can.”

  Both Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to be disappointed.

  “Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own interests,” said Mr. Vholes, “and when a client lays down his own principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with three daughters—Emma, Jane, and Caroline—and my desire is so to discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This appears to be a pleasant spot, miss.”

  The remark being made to me, in consequence of my being next him as we walked, I assented, and enumerated its chief attractions.

  “Indeed?” said Mr. Vholes. “I have the privilege of supporting an aged father in the Vale of Taunton—his native place—and I admire that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so attractive here.”

  To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to live altogether in the country?

  “There, miss,” said he, “you touch me on a tender string. My health is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits; especially as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming into contact with general society, and particularly with ladies’ society, which I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters, Emma, Jane, and Caroline—and my aged father—I cannot afford to be selfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother who died in her hundred-and-second year; but enough remains to render it indispensable that the mill should be always going.”

  It required some attention to hear him, on account of his inward speaking and his lifeless manner.

  “You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters,” he said. “They are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little independence, as well as a good name.”

  We now arrived at Mr. Boythorn’s house, where the tea-table, all prepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried, shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes’s chair, whispered something in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud—or as nearly aloud I suppose as he had ever replied to anything—“You will drive me, will you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am quite at your service.”

  We understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already paid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard, and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we politely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms, and retire when the night-travellers were gone.

  Richard’s high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had ordered a gig to wait; and where we found a man with a lantern standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed to it.

  I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern’s light; Richard, all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his hand; Mr. Vholes, quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

  My dear girl told me that night, how Richard’s being thereafter prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think of him at all times: never of herself, if she could devote herself to him: never of her own delights, if she could minister to his.

  And she kept her word?

  I look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens and the journey’s end is growing visible; and, true and good above the dead sea of the Chancery suit, and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore, I think I see my darling.

  CHAPTER 38

  A STRUGGLE

  When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were punctual to the day, and were received with an overpowering welcome. I was perfectly restored to health and strength; and finding my housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. “Once more, duty, duty, Esther,” said I; “and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you ought to be. That’s all I have to say to you, my dear!”

  The first few mornings were morni
ngs of so much bustle and business, devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to and fro between the Growlery and all other parts of the house, so many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new beginning altogether, that I had not a moment’s leisure. But when these arrangements were completed, and everything was in order, I paid a visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own mind.

  I made Caddy Jellyby—her maiden name was so natural to me that I always called her by it—the pretext for this visit; and wrote her a note previously, asking the favour of her company on a little business expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London by stage-coach in such good time, that I got to Newman Street with the day before me.

  Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad—I mean as good; and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any possibility of doing anything meritorious.

  The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was milling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an apprentice—it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the trade of dancing—was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law was extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived most happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.)

  “And how is your mama, Caddy?” said I.

  “Why, I hear of her, Esther,” replied Caddy, “through Pa; but I see very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say; but Ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her.”

  It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations, before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd; but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself.

  “And your papa, Caddy?”

  “He comes here every evening,” returned Caddy, “and is so fond of sitting in the corner there, that it’s a treat to see him.” Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby’s head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found such a resting-place for it.

  “And you, Caddy,” said I, “you are always busy, I’ll be bound?”

  “Well, my dear,” returned Caddy, “I am indeed; for to tell you a grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince’s health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, and the apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow!”

  The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me, that I asked Caddy if there were many of them?

  “Four,” said Caddy. “One in-door, and three out. They are very good children; only when they get together they will play—children-like—instead of attending to their work. So the little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can.”

  “That is only for their steps, of course?” said I.

  “Only for their steps,” said Caddy. “In that way they practice, so many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They dance in the academy; and at this time of year we do Figures at five every morning.”

  “Why, what a laborious life!” I exclaimed.

  “I assure you, my dear,” returned Caddy, smiling, “when the out-door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the windows, and see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps.”

  All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication, and cheerfully recounted the particulars of her own studies.

  “You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the Piano, and I ought to know something of the Kit too, and consequently I have to practice those two instruments as well as the details of our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn’t any; and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery—I have to thank Ma for that, at all events—and where there’s a will there’s a way, you know, Esther, the world over.” Saying these words, Caddy laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano, and really rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly and blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself, said, “Don’t laugh at me, please; that’s a dear girl!”

  I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed, dancing-master’s wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite as good as a Mission.

  “My dear,” said Caddy, delighted, “you can’t think how you cheer me. I shall owe you, you don’t know how much. What changes, Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!”

  Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet, I was glad to tell her; for I should have been vexed to take her away then. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I made one in the dance.

  The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys, and one dirty little limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and feet—and heels particularly.

  I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for them? Caddy said she didn’t know; perhaps they were designed for teachers; perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy’s mother kept a ginger-beer shop.

  We danced for an hour with great gravity; the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy, while she was observant of her husband, and was evidently founded upon him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which, united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young people; and he seldom interfered, except to walk his part in the figure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, was a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock.

  When the practice was concluded, Caddy’s husband made himself ready to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put on their half-boots, and pull the in-door boy’s hair; as I judged from the nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned, and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold bread and meat, and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The little gauzy girl, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and put on a trodden-down pair o
f shoes, shook her head into the dowdy bonnet at one shake; and answering my inquiry whether she liked dancing, by replying, “Not with boys,” tied it across her chin and went home contemptuous.

  “Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry,” said Caddy, “that he has not finished dressing yet, and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther.”

  I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention.

  “It takes him a long time to dress,” said Caddy, “because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. You can’t think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa, of an evening, about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.”

  There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his Deportment on Mr. Jellyby, that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy, if he brought her papa out much?

  “No,” said Caddy, “I don’t know that he does that; but he talks to Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to Deportment, but they get on together delightfully. You can’t think what good companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life; but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop’s box regularly, and keeps putting it to his nose, and taking it away again, all the evening.”

  That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha, appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.

  “As to Peepy,” said Caddy, with a little hesitation, “whom I was most afraid of—next to having any family of my own, Esther—as an inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short,” said Caddy, cheerily, “and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl, and ought to be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?”